Dear Lara: Thought you would find the attachments very interesting. Your comments would be appreciated. Jason

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THE PARIS AGREEMENT OF 2015 RELATING TO CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING

AN ALTERNATIVE ANALYSIS

By Jason Brent

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The purpose of this essay is to present evidence that the Paris Agreement (Agreement) will accomplish nothing and will be a complete failure. Enclosed with this essay are two exhibits—1) The official version of the Paris Agreement in the English language; and 2) A number of essays written by Albert Bartlett, recently deceased Professor of Physics at the University of Colorado, plus essays written by others. These essays prove, in my opinion, that the concepts of “sustainable development”, “sustainable growth and “sustainability” in general are false concepts. Since the foundation of the Agreement is the concept of “sustainable development” and since that is a false concept, the Agreement is doomed to failure and will accomplish nothing. You are very much urged to read Exhibit 2 before proceeding further. This point will be discussed below in greater detail.

To the best of my knowledge, the Paris Agreement was approved by about hundred-ninety five nations and formally signed by in excess of one hundred-fourteen nations. To the best of my knowledge, no nation refused to sign the Agreement based on the position that Global Warming was a hoax and/or that Global Warming was not caused by the actions of humanity. While I do not know what portion of the nations that approved the Agreement submitted the Agreement to their scientific advisors prior to their approval, it can be reasonably assumed that the portion that submitted the Agreement to their scientific advisers was substantially greater than 50%. To the best of my knowledge, the only people that take the position that Global Warming is a hoax or if the planet is warming that the warming is not being caused by the actions of humanity are members of the Republican Party and the President Elect, Donald J. Trump, of the US.

This essay will discuss four items—1) The failure to include the effects of the exploding human population on Global Warming; 2) The failure to include the effects of Industrialization on Global Warming; 3) The fact that the basis of the Agreement, “sustainable development” or “sustainability” in any form does not exist and is a fool’s dream; and 4) That the Agreement requires “Developed country Parties” to assist financially “developing country Parties” .

According to the UN’s latest numbers (2015) the current human population is about 7.3 billion and is expected to increase (medium variant) to over 11.2 billion by the year 2100. A strong argument can be made that the UN’s estimate is on the low side, based upon previously made low errors. However, for the purposes of this essay I will use the 11.2 billion as the population in the year 2100. Set forth below are three examples which should clearly show the destructive power of population growth and of industrialization on the problem of Global Warming. The first example only considers population growth, without considering the necessary reduction in the amount of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere to prevent the destructive effects of Global Warming and without considering the effect of increasing industrialization that would normally increase the amount of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere. The second example considers population growth and an estimated decrease of 25% in the amount of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere that would be necessary to prevent the catastrophic events that would be caused by Global Warming. The third example, the worst case example, considers all effects— population increase (growing from 7.3 today to 11.2 billion in the year 2100), a necessary decrease of 25% in the amount of released greenhouse gases into the atmosphere in order to prevent a catastrophe by the year 2100 and a potential 25% increase in the amount of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere due to the industrialization that will occur between now and the year 2100. The 25% used in examples numbered 2 and 3 are my estimates. The actual amount of decrease in the release of greenhouse gases necessary to prevent the destruction that would be caused by Global Warming and the actual amount by which the discharge of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere will be increased due to industrialization may be higher or lower than my estimates. However, I believe my estimates are realistic and are being used in this essay, just to provide examples to give the reader a feel for the problem.

First example— assume that each person produces one pound (one pound is being used by me so that the answer comes out as a percentage decrease) of greenhouse gases- therefore a total of 7.3 billion pounds of greenhouse gases will be released into the atmosphere each year. To just maintain that level, each person would be limited to producing 0.646 pounds of greenhouse gases in the year 2100(7.3 divided by 11.2=0.646). This represents a per capita reduction in the production of greenhouse gases of in excess of 35%.

Second example— this example is the same as the first example, except that in order to prevent destructive Global Warming the total amount of greenhouse gases has to be reduced by 25%. Therefore, instead of 7.3 billion pounds of greenhouse gases, humanity will be limited to 5.47 billion pounds (7.3 X 0.75 = 5.47). Therefore, when the human population reached 11.2 billion in the year 2100 each person would be limited to 0.488 pounds (5.47 divided by 11.2 =0.488). This represents a per capita reduction in the production of greenhouse gases in excess of 51%.

Third example—this example is the same as the second example, except in this example I have assumed that the increase in the release of greenhouse gases would be 25% caused by the increased industrialization which will occur between now and the year 2100. And there cannot be any dispute that industrialization will increase due to the desires of billions of people living in the Third World to have an increased standard of living. Therefore, we can assume that instead of producing 1 pound of greenhouse gases each person would produce the theoretical amount of 1.25 pounds of greenhouse gases. That would result in the total production of 14 billion pounds (11.2 X 1.25 =14.0) of greenhouse gases in the year 2100. To reach the level set forth in the second example of 5.47 billion pounds, each person would only be allowed to produce 0.390 (5.47 divided by 14.0 = 0.390) pounds of greenhouse gases in the year 2100. This represents a reduction of over 61% in the per capita production of greenhouse gases by the year 2100.

It is highly likely, perhaps even almost certain, that none of those levels will be achieved by the year 2100. These examples should frighten the reader due to the fact that global warming cannot and will not be controlled unless the population level is dramatically reduced prior to the year 2100 and unless the increase in the world- wide industrialization is considered and taken into account when attempting to control/reduce the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The Agreement will fail because the Agreement does not require any nation to take any action regarding the exploding human population and does not require any nation to consider how the increasing industrialization will affect the release of greenhouse gases between now and the year 2100. Any attempt to save humanity from destruction by the year 2100 by controlling/limiting the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere will fail unless action is taken to control population growth and population is expected to grow between now and the year 2100 by greater than 53% (11.2 divided by 7.3 =1.534 or an increase greater than 53%). And to repeat myself, the Agreement does not mention or consider the exploding human population.

Article 9 paragraph 1 of the Agreement states—” Developed country Parties shall provide financial resources to assist developing country Parties with respect to both mitigation and adaption in continuation of their existing obligations under the Convention.” Without going into a long political discussion, there is a strong possibility/probability that neither the United Kingdom nor the United States will provide any monies to developing country parties, as shown by the election of Donald J Trump as President of the United States and Brexit as voted on by the British people.

First, and most importantly, the Agreement does not define the words “sustainable development” and without a definition those words are completely meaningless as their interpretation cannot be limited to anything intelligent. Also, while the Agreement mentions “eradication of poverty “, it does not contain any discussion of how the eradication of poverty can be achieved when the population is expected to grow by over 53% between now and the year 2100. No one can dispute the simple fact that increasing population by over 53% in just 84 years, between now and the year 2100,would put a tremendous strain on the limited resources that the earth can provide to humanity. No one can dispute the fact that adding over 3.9 billion people to the population between now and the year 2100 would make it extremely difficult to eradicate poverty. The Agreement uses the words “sustainable lifestyles” and “sustainable patterns of consumption and production” and again does not define those words. Without the defining those words, those words are meaningless.

The words “sustainable development” and/or the words “eradicate poverty” are included in the Agreement at the following places- Article 2, paragraph 1; Article 4, paragraph 1; Article 6 paragraphs 2, 4, 4a, 8, 9; Article 7, paragraphs 1, 9e(sustainable development of natural resources); and Article 8, paragraph 1. You are urged to read the entire Agreement, paying particular attention to the places mentioned in this paragraph. After reading the entire agreement and paying particular attention to the places mentioned in this paragraph, you should conclude that the concept of “sustainable development” forms the underlying foundation of the agreement, and if there is no such thing as “sustainable development” the agreement must fail.

Without a modifier as to how long “sustainable” will last, the reader of the Agreement must assume that the word “sustainable” was used by the drafters of the Agreement to indicate forever into the future. If the drafters of the Agreement did not want to cause the readers to believe that development could occur forever into the future, they should have included a modifier as to how long “sustainable” will last. And nothing lasts forever! There cannot be any doubt that humanity, by its intelligence and creativity, can reduce the amount of resources the earth provides to humanity to create a unit of economic production. However, that fact does not permit “sustainable development” to continue forever into the future. The intelligence and creativity of humanity can only delay the time at which development and growth will cease. Since development and growth requires the usage of one or more of the resources the earth provides humanity, and since almost all of those resources are finite and limited, development and growth must cease sometime in the future. The output of economic production cannot occur/continue with an input of zero physical resources provided to humanity by the earth. In simple terms there is no such thing as a free lunch— you cannot have economic activity without the use of resources and, therefore, there is no such thing as sustainable development. The words “sustainable development” and similar words are used by cowards, political leaders and economists who are afraid to advise humanity that since the earth is finite, both economic and population growth must cease in the future. The only questions are when and how will both of those items cease growth. The word “development” in the two word phrase “sustainable development” must have been used by the drafters of the Agreement to mean economic growth and economic growth can continue without the use of one or more of the resources provided by the earth to humanity. There aren’t any differences between the words “sustainable development” and “sustainable growth” and growth cannot continue forever on the finite earth. Economic growth requires the use of the resources the earth provides humanity and processing many/almost all of those resources such that humanity can use them causes the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

All humanity must understand that any attempt to raise the standard of living of Third World countries requires the use of resources and obtaining and processing those resources such that they can be used to increase the standard of living of Third World countries will cause the production and release of very substantial amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Using the words “sustainable development” in the Agreement does not change that simple fact that any attempt to raise the standard of living of the billions of people living of Third World countries will result in the release of enormous amounts of greenhouse gases.

The readers of this essay are urged to reread Exhibits 1 and 2. The Agreement will be a total failure and will not achieve the desired result of reducing the production of greenhouse gases in time to prevent the destruction of civilization. The failure of the drafters and signers of the Agreement to understand the effect of population growth on the production of greenhouse gases and their failure to understand that there is no such thing as “sustainable development” cannot and must be excused. They may argue that the Agreement is the best that could be achieved under the circumstances and to that I respond it is about the same as putting a band aid on a person with stage four Cancer. Humanity can and must do better to save our species from extinction.